Category Archives: Byline

LONDON — On a humid late spring evening, women from across north London descended upon a Victorian pub in the eclectic neighborhood of Camden for a secret meeting. Each slipped inside cradling a package under one arm. They weren’t there for a pint, though. They’d come for cake and to share the keys to its creation.

Long home to edgy worlds of music and art, urban Britain can now claim one more underground scene: baking. The Clandestine Cake Club, a hush-hush society for baking enthusiasts, has become wildly popular here. Since its inaugural meeting in 2010, the CCC has grown from one chapter to more than 185 across the British Isles and beyond, from Abergavenny to Wythenshawe and York.

Members have congregated in castles and canal barges to share their passion for cakes (no cupcakes or pies allowed), with one firm rule: The location is top-secret until shortly before the event — an attempt to add a little spice to the sometimes pedestrian occupation of home baking.The success of the CCC, and other British cooking clubs like it, reflects the increasing appetite for the culinary arts here. In the past year alone, 9 million more Britons have started baking, according to research by Mintel.

This British baking renaissance is being fueled, in part, by the recession. Renewed interest caused the industry to grow by 59 percent between 2007 and 2012 to reach $2.57 billion, Mintel reported. Home baking was one of the few sectors to experience growth during the financial crisis — in products from cake decorations to sugar. Even though consumers are spending less on groceries, the Office for National Statistics reported that British household spending on flour has steadily increased since 2008, jumping by 24 percent since 2010.

“Pressures on consumers’ real incomes combined with rising food inflation have encouraged more adults to go back to basics and bake from scratch as a means of economizing,” says Emma Clifford, senior food analyst at Mintel. At the same time, Clifford says, popular cooking shows have raised the profile of home baking.

LONDON — Hundreds of thousands of runners and spectators converged Sunday on the first major international marathon since the Boston bombings, turning the streets of this sprawling capital into a living tribute to the victims of last week’s attack on the other side of the Atlantic.

Under the watchful eye of boosted security forces, large crowds turned out for the London Marathon, with many calling their attendance a symbol of the determination of Londoners to remain unbowed by the tragedy in Boston. Lanky runners — including elite athletes who run the global circuit as well as a host of local amateurs — wore black ribbons pinned to their T-shirts in remembrance of the Boston victims. Some carried banners simply declaring, “For Boston.”

Before the start of the race at 10 a.m. local time, a 30-second period of silence was observed. Many runners vowed to hold their hands over their hearts in a gesture of support for Boston as they crossed the finish line.

“We are here today to show our solidarity for the people of Boston, who suffered those horrible attacks,” said Martin Ilott, 48, a British veterinarian who ran theBoston Marathon last week and was being treated for dehydration when the bombs went off at the finish line. On Sunday, he clutched an American flag as he prepared to watch his 19-year-old son run his first marathon. “You have to carry on.”

In the wake of the Boston attacks, Scotland Yard deployed several hundred more officers to ramp up race-day security and reassure the public. More than 650,000 people were expected to watch 36,000 runners traverse the iconic course that snakes its way from leafy Greenwich Park to the finish line on the Mall, a wide boulevard leading to Buckingham Palace.

A few here expressed lingering safety concerns. But on a sunny spring morning very similar to last week’s fateful day in Boston, London appeared largely able to push aside any sense of fear, with many in the crowd embracing a light-hearted, even festive mood. Men running for charities wore dresses and pink wigs. Women were decked out in blue tutus, and the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” blared over the sound system as runners stretched and warmed up. Continue reading →

I can’t believe people queue for that,” says a man in a suit and tie as he walks briskly past the mass of eager customers chatting outside Meat Liquor, a popular burger joint in central London.

But after six months working in the British capital, I’m craving a taste of greasy, down-home American diner food, and no snide comment is going to deter me from trying what are rumored to be the best burgers in the city.

It’s a Wednesday night, and as we approach the restaurant, which is a short walk from Oxford Circus, I mistake it at first for a nightclub. A line of trendy 20-somethings, waiting to score a coveted table, stretches down the street. My boyfriend and I file in at the end of the queue and huddle beneath the glowing heaters in an attempt to fend off the London damp. The crowd is buzzing, cold hands clinging to cans of cider.

The line moves relatively quickly, and soon we’re inside, where the scene is dark and chaotic. The look of the space is influenced by the squat bars of eastern Berlin, which co-owners Yianni Papoutsis and Scott Collins have both frequented. The Rococo-style domed ceiling is splattered with sinister red-and-black illustrations. But any unease we feel about the punk venue fades once the cafeteria-style tray comes out, piled high with chicken wings, coleslaw, messy and oozing cheeseburgers and proper fries — not the potato chunks the Brits call chips.

Across the table, my boyfriend is already several bites into his double-patty Dead Hippie burger, which is starting to drip a mix of cheese and onions onto the table. My cheeseburger, stuffed with pickles, lettuce and red onions, is satisfying enough, but pretty soon I’m feeling burger envy. With its addictive special sauce and double-decker patties, the juicy Dead Hippie is our favorite, hands down.

When I come up for air, the crowd around the cocktail bar has grown, and I remember my drink. I admit that the familiar old American favorites are much more thrilling when paired with an absinthe-based cocktail served in the ultimate hipster accouterment: a Mason jar. But despite the allure of my cold glass of Donkey Punch, my attention is still on the skinny, salty fries.

“We worked for months to get something as close to the perfect french fry as possible,” says Papoutsis, who’s also Meat Liquor’s chef. “I love McDonald’s french fries. They’re the best in the world, in my opinion.”

As for Meat Liquor’s fries, they’re not the best I’ve ever tasted, but they’re certainly on a par with Mickey D’s.

Byronic burgers

The United States may get a bad rap as “fast food nation,” but its high-calorie comfort food has found a niche in London. And making junk food cool is something that only the Brits could pull off. Who knew that the humble hamburger could be so chic?

“The hamburger is America’s biggest single culinary gift to the world,” says British burgermeister Tom Byng, the founder of Byron. The upmarket British burger chain was inspired by Byng’s time studying in Providence, R.I., where he was a regular late-night customer at the Silver Top Diner, a local greasy spoon. Continue reading →

By Eliza Mackintosh, Updated: Monday, February 4, 11:58 AM

(Gavin Fogg/AFP/Getty Images) – In this Sept. 12, 2012 photo, men dressed as medieval knights pose for pictures in Leicester, England, at the site where a skeleton later identified as that of British medieval king Richard III was found.

LONDON — A team of archaeologists confirmed Monday that ancient remains found under a parking lot belong to long-lost King Richard III, successfully ending a search that sparked a modern-day debate about the legacy of the reputed tyrant.

Trauma analysis of the skeleton found 10 battle wounds, eight on the skull and two on the body, which were inflicted around the time of death, according to Jo Appleby, project osteologist of the University of Leicester. Many of the wounds provided evidence of “post-mortem humiliation injuries,” exacted on Richard III after death by his adversaries. All skeletal evidence was considered highly convincing in support of identifying the remains as those of Richard III.

The next task for authorities was to decide where to reinter the king. This has been a contentious issue, which was hotly debated on the floor of the House of Commons between members of Parliament from York — for whom Richard was the last hope against rival Lancastrians in the War of the Roses — and Leicester, where the remains were found.

Church of England protocol suggests that the bones stay where they were found and be reburied in nearby Leicester Cathedral. But some supporters insisted that his remains be reinterred at the Anglican cathedral in York, where history suggests that he wanted to be buried.

The mayor of Leicester, Peter Soulsby, announced an agreement Monday to bury the king’s remains at Leicester Cathedral. This could prove to be a tourist boon for the Leicester City Council, which plans to open a visitor’s center at the excavation site, across from the church, that will tell what it considers the “real” story of Richard III.

Before this announcement, some of Richard’s staunchest supporters argued that a royal burial at Westminster Abbey would only be appropriate for the much-misunderstood monarch. That option seemed to have been vetoed by Queen Elizabeth II, whose royal lineage would not have been possible without the chain reaction caused by Richard’s death. Continue reading →

By Eliza Mackintosh, Published: December 21

(Andrew Darrington/Alamy) – Turtledoves have virtually disappeared from areas of the U.K.

LONDON — Good luck trying to find a partridge in a pear tree in Britain this Christmas, or even less likely — the true love’s token of two turtledoves.

More than 200 years since the popular carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was first printed in London, many of its holiday icons are on the decline.

Recent statistics on wild birdlife in the U.K., published in a report by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, have raised concerns about the survival of such classic Christmas symbols as the partridge and turtledove.

While the number of gray partridges in Britain is dwindling, turtledoves have virtually disappeared from Wales and northern areas of England, decreasing by 60 percent between 2005 and 2010. The remaining 14,000 turtledove pairs are confined to southeast England, down from 140,000 breeding pairs in 1970. The grey partridge population, estimated at 43,000 pairs, is faring slightly better with a drop of 30 percent over the same period.

If the decline continues at the same rate, scientists from the Royal Society for Protection of Birds estimate that there could be as few as 1,000 pairs of turtledoves a decade from now.

“We could lose this bird,” Mark Eaton, an RSPB scientist, said. “Many people might not know what one looks like or see one very often, but it’s in the Christmas song, it’s a symbol of love, Shakespeare wrote a poem about turtledoves, it has a great cultural significance here.”

In the spring, Operation Turtle Dove was launched as an emergency response to the bird’s decline. The group’s mission is to get support for research and to help “find ways of restoring the population to get turtledoves back in the countryside, where they belong,” RSPB spokesman Grahame Madge said. The RSPB says that cuts in the British government and European budgets could jeopardize agricultural subsidies, which help farmers care for birdlife on their lands .

“If they become extinct, all that will be left is a line in a song and nothing more,” Eaton added.

Turtledoves and partridges are not the only stars of the song taking a hit in Britain. Maids-a-milking, lords-a-leaping, pipers piping and drummers drumming also have been affected.

Since milkmaids were replaced by modern milking machines in the 1900s, the dairy industry in the United Kingdom has gradually decreased in size. According to statistics from DairyCo, the number of dairy farms in the U.K. has nearly halved over the past 10 years. In June 2011, there were 14,793 dairy farms, compared with 26,556 in 2001.

The House of Lords, which dates to the 14th century, suffered a brief scare this summer when Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg put forward a bill to reform the government body. The House of Lords Reform Bill, which aimed to make the chamber more democratic, was voted down in its second reading. Conservative Members of Parliament argued that reform was not a priority in such a difficult economic climate.

Financial woes could also affect British regiments, which have pipers and drummers in their ranks. Ministry of Defense cuts, announced in July, will result in 23 military units being disbanded or combined, with 17 fewer units overall. The restructuring of the British army will reduce a force of 102,000 soldiers to 82,000 by 2020, although it is not clear what will become of the military bands.

Despite PNC Wealth Management’s claim that the economy is improving, prices continue to rise on almost all items featured in “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The PNC’s yearly Christmas Price Index reports a 6.1 percent jump in the price tag for all of the song’s 364 gifts, which now rack up to a total of $107,300.

But, in the future, PNC may have to account for the utter lack of some of the carol’s Christmas staples.

By Eliza Mackintosh, Published: December 9

London — Seeking to enrich the lives of their citizens, British cities and towns once embraced art for art’s sake, scooping up masterworks for display in squares, train stations, schools and museums. But as Europe scrimps and saves amid a historic push to slash public debt, the motto here now is art for cash’s sake.A fire sale of landmark works owned by British municipalities is generating a national debate over the true value of public art. Though the parade of sales is echoing a trend across Europe that has seen cash-strapped Greece move to sell off islands and Italy peddle a 17th-century palazzo, the outcry here is from those who worry that a push for short-term gains is outweighing the blow to cultural life.

But at a time when the national government’s austerity crusade is slashing local spending, a host of mayors say they have no choice. In an effort to combat $160 million in cuts, for instance, the downtrodden East London borough of Tower Hamlets is selling “Draped Seated Woman,” a 1957 bronze by British abstract sculptor Henry Moore. Moore sold the sculpture to the London County Council in 1962 at the generous price of $11,800, under the stipulation that it remain in a visible public space for everyone to enjoy. “Old Flo,” as the work has been nicknamed, is expected to bring in anywhere from $8 million to $32 million when it goes up for auction at Christie’s in February.

“Henry Moore said he wanted his sculpture to benefit the residents of the borough and through the sale the council can achieve this in a tangible and practical way,” council member Rania Khan, cabinet member for culture and regeneration in Tower Hamlets, said in a statement. “We are not the first council to do this in order to benefit our residents and I am sure we will not be the last.”

Moore’s sculpture is one of many public artworks that have recently been slapped with a price tag. The council of Northampton, a large town north of London, plans to sell an Egyptian statue dating to 2400 B.C. and estimated to be worth $3 million. Last year, Bolton Council in Greater Manchester, which faces budget cuts of more than $95 million, cashed in on 36 pieces of art from its collection, including works by Picasso and the 19th-century English painter John Everett Millais. Meanwhile, Leicestershire County Council in the Midlands raised more than $270,000 last year by selling off art originally purchased for display in schools, and Newcastle City Council offered portions of a public sculpture worth $430,000 on eBay.

The sales have caused an uproar. Filmmaker Danny Boyle, who staged the opening ceremony at the London Olympics, and Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate galleries, joined others from the British art world to denounce the sale in Tower Hamlets. In an open letter published in Britain’s Observer newspaper last month they wrote, “while we understand the financial pressures that Tower Hamlets faces, we feel that the mayor’s proposal goes against the spirit of Henry Moore’s original sale to London County Council.”

“The value of public art is diminished by being monetarized,” Boyle said in a statement last month. “The Moore sculpture defies all prejudice in people’s minds about one of London’s poorest boroughs. That alone makes it priceless to every resident.”

Yet, in several cases, supporters of the sales note that many of the works being offered had been in storage or were not on local display. For instance, the Moore statue in Tower Hamlets — once adorning the Stifford Estate, a low-income housing association in East London — was moved 15 years ago after the compound was demolished and the sculpture was vandalized. It now rests 200 miles north of East London, in the rural rolling hills of 500-acre Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Yorkshire.

In 2010, conservative council member Tim Archer started a campaign to bring Old Flo back to the borough, but the Tower Hamlets Council shot down the effort because of the exorbitant cost of insuring the sculpture.

Andrew Shoben, professor of public art at Goldsmiths, University of London, sympathizes with Tower Hamlets. He said the sale could offer an opportunity for commissioning new works by up-and-coming artists.

Members of the Tower Hamlets Council say most of the revenue will be used to fund public housing. Although they say a portion will also go toward a local art fund, Rushanara Ali, a member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow, a ward in Tower Hamlets, calls that “wishful thinking.”

“The rationale that has been given by the mayor of Tower Hamlets is that the sale is to delay a gap in terms of costs that the council faces on services,” said Ali, who opposes the decision to sell the sculpture. “The issue is that there has been poor management of public finance.

“There’s a wider question that this whole affair raises, which is, where does it stop? Where do you draw the line in terms of selling off public art?” Ali said.

Ian Leith, founder and deputy chairman of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, said he worries that selling national treasures such as “Draped Seated Woman” is becoming a trend.

“We are worried about the precedents for further public removals in order to realize assets,” Leith said. “A whole host of further pieces are potentially at risk.”

LONDON — After nine months of hearings sparked by phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid, a landmark report released Thursday recommended new, independent oversight of newspapers in what was seen as a day of reckoning for the British press.The nearly 2,000-page report sets up a politically explosive battle over how to eradicate a “subculture” of illicit news gathering in dark corners of old Fleet Street without treading on freedom of the press. It calls for a new press law — the first since the 17th century — that would safeguard media freedoms in Britain while also creating an independent body to act as a watchdog on an industry that has, thus far, largely regulated itself.

“For the first time we would have crossed the Rubicon of writing elements of press regulation into the law of the land,” Cameron said on the floor of Parliament. “We should, I believe, be wary of any legislation that has the potential to infringe free speech and a free press.”

Britain’s famously aggressive print media — and particularly its salacious tabloids — came under fire last year following revelations of widespread phone hacking at News of the World, targeting celebrities and crime victims, including a 13-year-old girl who was murdered. While singling out the now-defunct paper for particular wrongdoing, the report, issued by a panel headed by Lord Justice Brian Leveson, amounted to a far broader indictment of criminal behavior and ethical lapses in the press.

News media and free-speech groups in Britain have bitterly opposed any legislation smacking of government regulation of the press. The report appeared to sidestep their biggest fear — some form of government oversight. But skeptics remained cautious about the part of the Leveson proposal that would undergird the independent oversight body through a new press law.

In presenting his report Thursday, Leveson said part of the proposed law would be designed to protect press freedoms, serving almost like the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. He insisted that he was not suggesting government oversight, and he lauded the domestic press as a pillar of British democracy and a treasured haven for the “irreverent, unruly and opinionated.”

But he said it was clear that the current Press Complaints Commission, peppered with newspaper editors and limited in its powers, was not working. Instead, he called for an independent body — free of influence from both the government and news media groups — to be enshrined in law. The powerful new body could investigate and arbitrate claims made by victims of media wrongdoing and issue fines of as much as $1.6 million.

The panel’s nonbinding recommendations put immediate pressure on Cameron. Although he expressed caution about establishing an independent oversight body based on law, he is facing demands from the opposition Labor Party and his own coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, to fully adopt Leveson’s proposal.

“The ball moves back into the politicians’ court,” Leveson said at a news conference Thursday. “They must now decide who guards the guardians.”

The Press Complaints Commission that now regulates the press here is made up of editors and other notable figures and was criticized last year in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal as a “toothless” organization.

David Hunt, the commission’s chairman, has put forward his own plan for a rehabilitated independent commission with a new “compliance” arm that would be able to impose fines and enforce standards, powers the current body lacks. Guy Black, chairman of the current commission’s funding arm, has also recommended retaining a system of self-regulation but expanding the commission’s authority so it could launch investigations and levy larger fines.

But Leveson dismissed those options for beefed-up self-regulation as not going far enough. “A free press in a democracy holds power to account but, with a few honorable exceptions, the U.K. press has not performed that vital role in the case of its own power,” he said.

Many of the practices documented by the Leveson report are already illegal under British law, suggesting that the problem is as much one of tolerance or inept law enforcement as of journalistic ethics. The report, however, found no evidence of widespread wrongdoing by law enforcement officials, although it cited specific examples of gray areas, including cozy relationships that led to unofficial tip-offs and informal briefings.